Subrahmanyam Jaishankar
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A brief biography
As in 2023
Sep 9, 2023: The Indian Express
Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, 68, a career diplomat with more than three decades of Indian Foreign Service experience under his belt, was only a year into his retirement when he was appointed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Cabinet as the Union Minister of External Affairs in May 2019. Previously the foreign secretary from 2015 to 2018, and the ambassador to the United States and China, Jaishankar as foreign minister has emerged as one of the key figures in the Modi Cabinet and has managed to straddle the line between politics and bureaucracy while furthering the government’s cause of projecting India onto the global stage.
Many of his sharp and direct responses to criticisms of the Indian government have garnered attention, particularly on social media, and raised his profile as a public figure far more than his predecessors. Despite having no prior political experience, he hasn’t shied away from playing the role of a politician, defending the government against the Opposition’s criticism, too.
As India hosts its first G20 Summit, with the Prime Minister and External Affairs Minister in the spotlight, here are some notable moments and quotes from Jaishankar’s tenure.
Conflict with China India has long criticised Chinese infrastructure build-up and incursions along the border. Between 2020 and 2021, there were a series of skirmishes along the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh, leading up to the clashes at Pangong Lake and in the Galwan Valley, where more than 20 Indian soldiers were killed. Putting the blame on China, Jaishankar called the incursion a “premeditated and planned action”. “The Chinese side sought to erect a structure in Galwan Valley on our side of the LAC… While this became a source of dispute, the Chinese side took premeditated and planned action that was directly responsible for the resulting violence and casualties,” Jaishankar told his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi. A year later, he said the Galwan clashes were casting a shadow on ties between the countries. “We have agreements with China going back to the 1990s, which prohibit bringing mass troops in the border area. They have disregarded that. You know what happened in the Galwan valley. That problem has not been resolved and that has been clearly casting a shadow,” he said.
Since then, amid charges from the Opposition on Chinese occupation of Indian territory, Jaishankar has insisted the issue is not about a “land grab”. “The issue is about forward deployment and because of that the tensions can go towards violence,” he said.
Firing back at the Congress over its claims on Chinese occupation, Jaishankar said: “When did that area actually come under Chinese control? They (Congress) must have some problem understanding words beginning with ‘C’. I think they are deliberately misrepresenting the situation. The Chinese first came there in 1958 and the Chinese captured it in October 1962. Now you are going to blame the Modi government in 2023 for a bridge which the Chinese captured in 1962, and you don’t have the honesty to say that it is where it happened.”
Jaishankar said that China is the only country with which ties have not improved. “If there is any expectation that somehow we will normalise (ties) while the border situation is not normal, that’s not a well-founded expectation… We want to improve relations with China. But it will be possible only when there is peace and tranquillity in border areas,” he said.
More recently, China drew the foreign minister’s ire after it released a “standard map” last month with Indian territories included in its borders. “China has put out maps with territories (that are) not theirs. (It is an) old habit. Just by putting out maps with parts of India… this doesn’t change anything… Making absurd claims does not make other people’s territories yours,” he said.
Strained ties with Pakistan
India and Pakistan have frequently traded charges on terrorism and Jammu and Kashmir in recent years.
For instance, in 2022, Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari referred to Modi as “the butcher of Gujarat” in reference to the 2002 riots after Jaishankar, in an address to the United Nations Security Council, accused Pakistan of hosting al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and overseeing the 2001 Parliament attack.
“While we search for the best solutions, what our discourse must never accept is the normalisation of such threats… That certainly applies to state sponsorship of cross-border terrorism. Nor can hosting Osama bin Laden and attacking a neighbouring Parliament serve as credentials to sermonise before this Council,” Jaishankar said.
Following a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in May this year, Jaishankar had again targeted Zardari. “As a foreign minister of an SCO member state, Mr Bhutto Zardari was treated accordingly. As a promoter, justifier and a spokesperson of a terrorism industry, which is the mainstay of Pakistan, his positions were called out and they were countered including at the SCO meeting itself,” he said.
After the revocation of Article 370, which stripped Jammu and Kashmir of its special status and bifurcated it into two Union Territories in 2019, Jaishankar called it “one of the biggest achievements” of the BJP government. He made the comments as the constitutional bench of the Supreme Court was hearing pleas challenging the abrogation of Article 370 recently. Pakistan, calling it an “international dispute”, has criticised the move. But Jaishankar said that India won’t discuss Kashmir with Pakistan until it ends its “illegal occupation of PoK”, at an SCO in May.
“Pakistan should wake up and smell the coffee. Article 370 is history, the sooner people realise it, the better,” he said, adding that on the subject of terrorism, “Pakistan’s credibility is depleting faster than even its Forex reserves.”
Improving ties with the US
In what marked the beginning of improved ties with the US during Jaishankar’s tenure, Modi and then US President Donald Trump attended a ‘Howdy Modi’ rally in Houston, Texas, and addressed a crowd of 50,000 Indian-Americans.
Under the Joe Biden administration, Jaishankar had said in 2020 that he expects the two countries to “pick up where (they) left off” despite “strong elements of bipartisanship” in American politics.
“You had four presidents and you really cannot find more dissimilar people – Clinton, George W Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. But one issue and one relationship to which all of them were committed was the Indian relationship,” he said.
With increased cooperation through the Quad and other initiatives, Jaishankar said engaging with the US has been a “positive experience”. “I see today a United States very international, very much more open to engaging a country like India, which is actually thinking beyond traditional alliances and has been very effective at finding common ground with potential or actual partners,” he said.
Jaishankar said Modi’s State visit, during which the US rolled out the red carpet despite India’s continued engagements with Russia, was “on a different level.”
“I actually, truly believe that with this visit, in many ways, our partnership has come of age. I use the word partnership and not relationship. I think we had a relationship earlier. Today it is much more collaborative, mutual interest-driven and mutually respectful,” he said.
On Europe and Russia-Ukraine war
Jaishankar has also spoken out against Europe since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which led to an energy crisis in the continent due to volatility in prices of oil and gas supplied by Russia. With Europe attempting to cut down its dependence on Russian fuel and preventing funding its war, many global leaders criticised India for continuing to buy from Russia.
“If you are looking at energy purchases from Russia. I would suggest your attention should be focused on Europe. We do (buy) some energy, which is necessary for our energy security, but I suspect our total purchases in a month is equal to what Europe does in an afternoon,” he said in 2022.
Later that year, he said, “Tell me if buying Russian gas is not funding the war. Why is only Indian money and oil coming to India that funds and not gas coming to Europe? Let’s be a little even handed out here.”
Earlier this year, he also chided European leaders for their foreign policy approach. “Somewhere Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe’s problems are the world’s problems but the world’s problems are not Europe’s problems,” he said.
Jaishankar has maintained that though he wants peace in Ukraine, India will maintain its ties with Russia. “Russia’s main economic partner was the Western countries. After the Ukraine conflict, that way was closed. Russia is now turning more and more towards Asia. Our trade before the Ukraine conflict was about 12-14 billion dollars, our trade last year was 40 billion dollars… We should keep our own relationship with Russia going and see how the interest of the Indian people is best served,” he said
‘The India Way’
In 2020, in what is considered uncommon for sitting foreign ministers, Jaishankar released ‘The India Way: Strategies for an Uncertain World’, a book detailing his vision of India’s foreign policy. The ‘Jaishankar doctrine’, as some have described it, favours non-alignment with major powers and an India-first approach.
“We have… reached a league where the ability to protect our interest is an assumption, not just an option… This is best done through a mix of national strengths and external relationships,” he writes.
Calling for strategic autonomy, though, he writes: “… Multilateralism may well take a backseat as rules and norms come under greater scrutiny and the consensus among the Permanent Five (US, China, Russia, China, UK and France) weakens.”
“A more transactional ethos will promote ad hoc groupings of disparate nations who have a shared interest on a particular issue. This would be supported by requirements of working together and reaching out beyond alliances,” he writes.
He wrote that India had raised its profile since the BJP government came to power in 2014 and that nationalism was key to India’s success. “In emotional terms, nationalism obviously contributes to a stronger sense of unity. In political terms, it signifies a greater determination to combat sub-national and supra-national challenges to it. In policy terms, it focuses on how to maximise national capabilities and influence,” he writes.
In defence of the government
Jaishankar has staunchly defended the government on issues ranging from the Opposition boycotting the inauguration of the new Parliament to a BBC documentary critical of Modi. After the Opposition claimed the government had “sidelined” President Droupadi Murmu for the new Parliament’s inauguration earlier this year, Jaishankar said, “Some people are trying (to create a controversy). But I believe that there should be a limit to indulging in politics. At least on such occasions, the entire country should come together and celebrate this festival.”
When the BBC released a documentary in January on the 2002 Gujarat riots and then Chief Minister Modi’s role in it, Jaishankar called it a “hatchet job”.
“We are not debating just a documentary or a speech… we are debating politics, which is being conducted ostensibly as media… You want to do a hatchet job and say this is just another quest for truth which we decided after 20 years to put at this time,” he said.
He also questioned the timing of the documentary, a year before the Lok Sabha election. “I mean, come on, you think timing is accidental? Let me tell you one thing – I don’t know if the election season has started in India, Delhi or not, but, for sure it has started in London, New York,” he added.
Claiming Western media is biased against India, he said, “What is happening is, just like I told you – this drip, drip, drip – how do you shape a very extremist image of India, of the government, of the BJP, of the Prime Minister. I mean, this has been going on for a decade.”
He has further criticised foreign media, saying, “If you read foreign newspapers, they use words like Hindu nationalist government. In America or Europe, they won’t say Christian nationalist…these adjectives are reserved for us.”
This year, he also challenged the World Press Freedom Index, which ranked India at 161st in the world, behind Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia, referring to the report as “mind games”. “I was amazed at our number. I thought we had the most uncontrollable press, and somebody is getting something fundamentally wrong… Afghanistan was freer than us. Can you imagine?” He had similarly criticised reports by the Freedom House and Varieties of Democracy Institute, which had made claims of democratic backsliding in India, describing them as “hypocrisy”.
